RESTAURANTS

Rooms With a View

By FRAN SCHUMER

Published: October 20, 1996

JERSEY CITY—
I'VE never eaten at Osteria del Circo in Manhattan, but I've heard people talk about the ingenious metalwork by the sculptor J. J. Veronis that brightens the room.

The six-foot monkey he fashioned from industrial scrap (the belly is a truck muffler) is one reason you should visit the Iron Monkey here.

The skyline of lower Manhattan, which you can see from the bar and roof deck, is another.

I have neighbors who won't dine out anywhere but in Manhattan. They live equidistant from that city and this one, but they aren't flexible. When they go out to dinner, they only want to eat in a restaurant that's reliably fabulous.

The food at the Iron Monkey doesn't merit that superlative, although the fresh red pepper fettuccine and huge, buttery scallops prepared by James M. Byrne, the executive chef, have plenty of gingery verve. Other factors draw people to this free-standing town house in ever-gentrifying Jersey City. There's view, of course. Customers at the Iron Monkey get to look at Manhattan. Customers at the restaurants my friends patronize get to look at us.

My son's teacher, who lives in Leonia, first told me about the Iron Monkey. Her sister had discovered it, and now that her husband was working at an advertising agency near Exchange Place in downtown Jersey City, he was on the lookout for interesting restaurants.

He couldn't have found a better hangout. For one thing, the Iron Monkey has good live music most nights and great live music on the nights when the management is able to book musicians like Greg Wall, the well-known local saxophone player. What a thrill to finish the last spoonful of Mr. Byrne's poached pears with raspberry coulis and drift down the stairs to the tune of ''Birdland.'' Or to watch Don Carter on the drums and the rest of his be-bop trio.

Some people come specifically to hear them, others because the Iron Monkey has two great bars. The one on the ground floor features more samples of Mr. Veronis's heavy-metal whimsy, other monkeys and an iron grille with sculptures of a carrot, a martini glass and a lobster with salad-fork claws.

The bar on the roof also offers evidence of Mr. Veronis's handiwork, plus stars.You can see the the World Trade Center, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and everything that sparkles in between from up here. The night of lunar eclipse was standing room only.

I thought of my neighbors and the perfect arugula salad they were probably eating at a restaurant like Osterio del Circo. But I was eating an imperfect salad (with a terrific dressing), watching an imperfect lunar eclipse and having a perfect evening.

In winter, the dining room on the second floor is more comfortable. Certainly it's lovely, and unusual. So many restaurants in New Jersey look like hotel dining rooms. Can you bear to see another swagged curtain, another rose in a gilded frame?

But Stephen McIntyre, the owner of the Iron Monkey, has friends who are artists, and their work fills these rooms. The pictures of fruit and flowers, photographed at the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan are by Robert Bery, who printed the images on wood and silver oil paint, which gives them a shimmering and surreal finish. They're unlike any others you've ever seen. Now run your hand along what appears to be wallpaper on the lower half of the wall. It is actually fabric that was originally intended to be made into boxer shorts. (Mr. McIntyre also imports textiles.)

The mantel above the fireplace is the only original part of the building, but the fireplace isn't working. So let dinner warm you.

Mr. Byrne created the menu, but it seems more in keeping with the ancestry of the owner, who is part Chinese, part Irish. The chicken won ton ravioli is served with a soy-sauce-and-peanut dressing that is purely Asian. The shepherd's pie is made with lamb and mashed potatoes dressed up with roasted shallots.

The mussels don't reflect anyone's origins. They're just terrific, plump Prince Edward Island beauties served simply with rosemary, tarragon and a spritz of Chablis. A perfect dinner if you end with the poached pear or the New York-style cheesecake.

But imperfect ones are all too possible. The kitchen is small and still getting its sea legs; when it does, you hope it will abandon the pita pizza, lighten the sauce on the swordfish, and cook a thicker piece of tuna for half the time. As for the roasted wild mushrooms with port on top of the tuna, and the buttery radicchio that comes with the grilled salmon, a special, here's hoping they remain their same garlicky, flavorful selves forever.

Two nights before the Iron Monkey opened in April, the staff gave a sit-down dinner for friends and neighbors who had to pay only for their liquor. Instead of the 70 people expected, about 120 came. Toward the end of the meal, Mr. Byrne descended from his tiny third-floor kitchen to greet his guests, who gave him a standing ovation.

I'm as fond of fabulous restaurants as anyone, but there are many ways to define the term. The combination of good art, good music, great views and low prices is so rare, in New York and in Jersey City, that when it happens, we applaud.